


Supernovae Lupis

by BlueBirdys



Category: Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts (Cartoon)
Genre: Aging, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Character Death, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Post-Canon, Siblings, Ten Years Later, The series epilogue made me feel things, and then a joke i had made about the wolves turned into something sad oops, especially for the cured mutes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:27:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27041215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueBirdys/pseuds/BlueBirdys
Summary: The average lifespan of a wolf in captivity can be around 15 years.
Comments: 28
Kudos: 118





	Supernovae Lupis

**Author's Note:**

> Hey so I really really really loved Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts and I thought the ending was super bittersweet and almost perfect that way, leaving loose ends. It felt raw and real. 
> 
> I wanted to write SOMETHING in regards to the cured mutes because you KNOW that the other shoe on that will drop. Regular animals have shorter lifespans...sooo...rip in peace Brad and the skunks and hummingbirds 
> 
> I didn't want to refer to the wolves as 'Good Billions' and 'Bad Billions' so for the record, Billions is in reference to 'Good Billions' in this fic, and 'Bad Billions' is referred to as his brother, and 'Billy' in a couple flashback instances. And their dad, Old Dirty Billions is the name I grabbed from the wiki. And their mother's name is a reference to Marie Curie.
> 
> For the record, I really love the Timbercats as well, but I wanted to write about the wolves because the ending scene with them at Dave's lecture struck a chord with me, and well...morally ambiguous scientists???? My niche???
> 
> Anywho, please enjoy this.

“Now I know you know this one, we discussed it prior, but I’d like to test your reflexes. Which of these- now please select them without chewing the card- which of these, based on the photometric redshift, is the farthest known galaxy from our planet?”

Billions kept his gaze shifting between the four flash cards on the floor, the curious faces of his intellectual colleagues, and the feral wolf laying on the stage, who was now the focus of their attention.

The visually disinterested animal, after several seconds of silence, flicked his ear, and yawned, and a warm puff of air from his nostrils blew on the cards, shifting them. 

Billions immediately picked up the card that had jostled the most, “See? He picked one.”

Lio Oak furrowed his brow with sympathetic skepticism, “I’m not quite sure. I know we did similar tests with Hugo, but I don’t think this is the same.”

“Of course you’d say that,” Billions scoffed, “Well, I know my brother much more than you do. Even after all these years he hasn’t changed his ways. He liked to pretend he wasn’t that invested in answering questions.”

He looked at the card, and frowned, “He also liked to pick wrong answers on purpose...apparently to make me look foolish.”

Song had placed her hand on the mute’s shoulder, “Just keep trying. It’s certainly not a lost cause.”

“I wouldn’t even imagine such a thing,” he shrugged his colleague’s hand off, and pocketed the flash cards, “I suppose I’ll have to save it for after this afternoon’s lectures, when he’s more alert. He always seems much more on the ball after his naps, yes?”, he gave his brother a look, and received a yawn in response.

Lio and Song had looked at each other, then at Billions, seeming to both have the same unspoken concern, especially upon seeing the slow and tired thump of the non-mute brother’s tail rhythmically on the floor.

“Billions...you know... it’s been about ten years since this all happened-”

“Oh this conversation again?” the mute crossed his arms, “Yes. I am very well aware the average lifespan of a non-mute wolf is significantly smaller than ours, and I am not ignorant about what has become of the fellow ‘cured’ mutes such as the rats or skunks over the years-”

“We just...want to know you are prepared for that in case it should happen-”

“Silly humans, as always, you are so preoccupied with mortality,” Billions almost chuckled. In spite of his grown respect for his colleagues, they still were of a flawed species, “Newton wolves are not ones to wallow in the emotional aspect of that sort of thing.”

“You know, it’s okay to be sad over things that happen,” Song assured him gently.

“I get sad over plenty of things,” the wolf assured her, “I was incredibly heartbroken to discover that Pluto had been deemed a dwarf planet. Who wouldn’t be sad about that?”

Song and Lio looked at each other, faint ghosts of smiles on their faces, and Lio sighed, “Alright. Well, if you want any more help coming up with tests for your brother, let us know.”

“Of course,” Billions waved them off dismissively as they left for lunch. He had other things to concern himself over. His intermediate-level lecture on the cosmos wasn’t going to prepare itself for the pups due to attend in an hour.

“As always, brother, I’d love to ask for any of your input,” he sighed, looking to the half-conscious being on the floor, “...Or you’d rather sleep right behind the podium? Unorthodox, but not inconvenient for me.”

* * *

_“Here, rub your eyes with this,” the young cub whispered to his brother as he handed him a handkerchief, “Father will notice if you get caught crying.”_

_Pushing the cloth up under his glasses, the tinier of the twins tried to blot the wetness out of his eyes, “Sorry, I just miss mother so much.”_

_“I do too,” the other Billions mumbled, “I think Father misses her too. But he’s very good about staying strong. He’s a good alpha that way.”_

_The two pups looked up at the portraits on the wall of Old Dirty Billions and Marie Billions, the latter cloaked under a dark shroud of mourning, as customary of the Newton Wolves._

_“Do you think mother is watching us, Billy?”, the bespectacled pup asked his brother._

_“That’s a dumb question,” the other pup whispered back, “She’s getting buried. There’s nothing she can even watch us with.”_

_“Father talks a lot about the cosmos and how much we don’t know about them-” Billions reasoned, “Maybe she’s out there somewhere in the stars.”_

_“...Okay, maybe,” his twin reached over to adjust the buttons on his brother’s fitted blazer, “But where in the stars would she be? She’d have to be somewhere we couldn’t ever reach her. Like Camelopardalis.”_

_“Or Australia.”_

_“Australia?”_

_“I saw it listed in a history book,” the pup whispered, “It seems pretty far away. Like eight thousand miles.”_

_“Oh,” his brother whispered back, “That is pretty far away.”_

_“Maybe we can travel there someday and see if she’s there.”_

_“We could ask Father to take us.”_

_The conversation had been forgotten, buried along with their mother in less than an hour, and stifled by the written discovery that Australia was not only not part of the cosmos, it no longer even existed._

* * *

He had stopped eating. 

Billions had chalked it up to a mere case of malaise, perhaps from the stress miasma wafted off by anxious students dealing with midterms. After all, his brother did spend most of his time during the day exploring around the academy, in the presence of students, accepting affection and treats from the youths. That was indeed another possible factor. Billions had warned his brother about the side effects of eating too many offered snacks. But observing, over the last two days, even such niblets had been rejected by the non-mute, who opted to wander the halls in aimless, slow loops.

Lio had examined him, giving a small smile at the tired groaning noise the wolf made, “Not hungry, buddy?”

“Brother please, you are going to be too exhausted to proctor exams if you don’t eat something,” Billions coaxed with exasperation, holding the lovely slab of meat in front of the other, “Perhaps he’s just anxious, and needs an appetite stimulant?”

Lio, more the expert on life sciences than Billions, finished his examination of the feral wolf and sighed, “We could try that, but I’m going to be honest with you-”

“It’s probably this particular cut. He never has been a fan of brisket.”

Lio hesitated to answer, but decided to cut to the chase, “There isn’t anything wrong with him that can’t be chalked up to age.”

“As suspected. So what?”

The human looked at Billions with sympathy, “He’s just gradually declining. It’s normal when animals are-”

“My brother is not an animal, he’s just as much of an intellectual as before-” Billions glowered at Lio.

“Billions, wolves in captivity don’t tend to live beyond fifteen years, and you were both fully grown when Emilia’s cure afflicted him-”

“My brother would not face dying with such passivity,” the mute argued, “Why, when he was afflicted with our pack’s distemper outbreak, he put up such a fuss, refusing to stay bedridden, whatever reaper of death came by would have gone running.”

He resisted snapping his jaws irritably when Lio touched his shoulder and told him, “I know you want things to stay the same but-”

“I don’t know where you got that idea, Human Oak,” Billions scoffed, “The universe is constantly changing.”

“Are you willing to see it change without your brother?”

Billions answered with silence, nudging his brother gently to show him the plate of meat again, and Lio said nothing more.

* * *

_“Got a challenge for you, brother,” Billions was met with a playfully aggressive jab to the ribs, “Whoever can name the eighty-eight modern constellations fastest gets first pick of the prey.”_

_“Oh what a juvenile challenge,” the bespectacled brother snickered, “You’re on.”_

_“Wanna raise the stakes?”, he licked his lips, “And the steaks?”_

_“Name them alphabetically,” he jabbed the other’s black blazer to flick off a ball of lint, “And you can get a double serving. But that may peeve off Megan, be fairly warned.”_

_“Oh, I’m sorry when did Megan become alpha? Oh wait, never. That’s when,” the co-alpha sneered, “And speaking of alpha- Andromeda, Antlia, Apus-”_

_“Hold on, I need a stop watch!”, Billions yelped, pleading for the other to stop listing so fast._

* * *

Oak’s daughter, the mute hybrid, had rubbed off on Billions the same way charcoal rubbed onto light colored clothing, but he would admit she did have the type of spirit that only could have been inherited from her parents, with a thirst for knowledge and exploration of the world. And while that thirst was from a place of naïve optimism, it accounted for something. Anyway, she did sort of save the worlds of both human and mutekind from falling apart, so he’d be grateful for that to some degree.

She’d expressed the same sort of bleeding heart worry that her mother did over his brother’s state of being, and Billions couldn’t decide if that annoyed or relieved him.

“I got him to eat like two bites of ice cream,” she announced from her seat in the auditorium where his brother was resting by her feet, licking his chops contently.

“He’s going to probably throw it up later, he could never stomach milk that well,” he spoke matter-of-factly. The thought of that made his mood sour more, even if the prospect that his brother was at least eating was something of an improvement from the last several days.

“Wolf says she saw him eat a bunch of cheese out of the vending machine once, and he didn’t even blink.”

“Is this true?”, Billions eyed his brother with a scolding leer, “Well you probably regretted it deeply the next day.”

The other wolf simply licked his lips again, and stood up to stretch, allowing Kipo to rub his chin and haunches, and returned the favor by licking her fingers.

“Awww, you big bubby-”, she began cooing at him, then caught Billions glaring at her from the podium, “Oh come on, it’s not my fault he likes me!”

“He likes the ice cream,” he snorted, “Your hands are covered in it.”

“Orrrr maybe he’s just mellowed out in his twilight years,” she kicked back in her seat with a playful smirk, but dropped it when she noticed the grown frown on the other’s face as he shifted papers on his pulpit.

“...Are you okay? You seem tired.”

“I am a biologically nocturnal creature giving lectures at one in the afternoon.”

“I mean...emotionally tired.”

“You’re quite nosey, aren’t you?”

“Look, I know you’re worried about your brother and I-”

“I am not worried about my brother,” he assured her with his pompously calm tone.

Kipo didn’t question it. But she wasn’t going to let Billions know that she had witnessed his consulting her mother for tips on giving a canine medicine. 

“Then I won’t worry either,” she tried to assure him whilst also trying to lift his non-mute twin.

“Now- what in the name of Sagan are you doing to him?!”, Billions scolded her, “He’s not a toy!”

“He likes it!”, she insisted, grinning at the feral wolf’s slightly confused expression to be lifted by a woman who was probably only 90 pounds soaking wet.

Billions wanted to argue that claim, but in full honesty, he didn’t know what his brother liked half the time these days.

* * *

The routine was getting more complex with each passing day. Not just with what was expected, but with everything that happened in between. 

He slept for two hours from 8 AM to 10. Then he prepared his brother’s breakfast.

Then he had to encourage him to eat it. Not just for the food, but for the medicine.

Then after throwing away seven eighths of a plate of food, he had to prepare for the afternoon class. 

Then he had to weave around questions that weren’t related to the lesson. 

Then it was time for afternoon medicine. And boy, did his brother hate that one, resisting with plenty of nips and scratching. But once it was handled, he was sated enough to want to sleep, and it allowed him some reprieve of his own.

He slept for three more hours, then it was time for the evening dose. This one went down much easier, his brother was too sleepy to fight it half the time. It left plenty of time for him to lead the evening hunts, but this night, brother simply wasn’t having it, keeping his jaws clamped shut.

“Come on now, this will ease the stiffness in your joints, Song Oak was kind enough to create this specifically for you,” Billions grumbled to his brother as he poked and prodded at his snout with the spoon, getting more and more frustrated as the other wolf ducked and thrashed under a blanket. 

Billions had to wrestle his brother’s smaller frame into a pinned position so he could try and pry his mouth open and stick the medicine in his throat, but as soon as his fingers poked under the gums, a warning growl came much too late as he suddenly had sharp teeth snap down on his hand.

“Ow!”, the mute yelped in pain, “Brother, that hurt! I’m simply trying to help you.”

The irritable rumble in the other’s throat didn’t cease, and Billions looked him in the eye, “Don’t you realize how sick you are? You need this.”

The pleas made no change in the other’s demeanor, and Billions could only watch as his twin slunk away stiffly to lick his non-existent wounds and hide under the bed.

The alpha faceplanted into the blanket. The hunt was off. If stupid Megan wanted to lead it this time, go ahead and let her.

Brother was back on the bed in twenty minutes, curling up at the foot of it, and giving snuffled slumbering breaths as he slept on top of his thoroughly chewed turtleneck.

Billions spoke into the pillow.

“Do you know yourself anymore? Do you even know me?”

* * *

_“She went out of this world howling at the top of her lungs,” Old Dirty Billions mused to his twin pups._

_“Was she in pain?”, the lighter furred mute put a nervous paw to his lips, in hopes not to start crying again as he stood over the freshly filled resting place._

_“Probably, why else would she be screaming?”, his brother gently nudged at the dirt with his foot._

_“She wasn’t in pain,” the alpha assured, “She simply wanted to go out on a high note. She knew her time was coming, and she didn’t want to leave the world quietly. She had entered the world quietly, and she didn’t want to do the same going out.”_

_“...What about us?”, Billions’ brother piped up, “How did we enter the world?”_

_“You entered it kicking and screaming,” Old Dirty Billions smirked to the wily pup, “It’s no wonder you were born first, you probably fought to be there.”_

_“What about me?”_

_“You,” Billion’s father pointed, “entered without a single noise. In fact, we didn’t really know if you were alive until you made that first breath. You had the cord wrapped around your neck.”_

_“Oooh, creepy,” his brother pinched his shoulders with his hands._

_“Billy, stoooop,” the bespectacled pup laughed as he swatted at the other._

_“It’s something of a rule of the universe it seems...that those who come into the world with a whisper will fight to be heard and go out with a bang to ensure it...and those who come into the world with a bang will be satisfied enough to go out without much fuss.”_

_“I’m going out howling,” the firstborn shoved his brother in the ribs._

_“Me too.”_

* * *

It was strange. For the last two weeks, he hardly moved during the day, and slept unless he was woken for medicine. But now, Billions couldn’t find him anywhere after classes were over. No student had seen him in the auditorium, or anywhere in the halls or classrooms. And on the offchance he’d regained his lyric writing skills, Billions looked for him in the music classroom.

After a search outside on all the walking trails he sometimes allowed students to take his brother on, he went back inside just as the sky grew dark, and only then caught sight of a tail gently brushing the floor from behind the staircase of the telescope.

“What are you doing behind the staircase, brother?” the mute approached, seeing him on the floor, front paws resting near the lowest stair.

A low noise came from him as he tilted his head back to look at Billions, eyes glancing towards the topmost stair.

“Are you feeling alright? Shall I bring you some bisque?”

Somehow, Billions could see in the set of feral eyes the desire to get up and come to him, but with no physical effort made, he knew what was being said. Brother was too tired. And too old.

A pang of desperation stabbed Billions’ stomach. He’d been told, reminded, and acknowledged this sort of unavoidable thing was to happen. But he didn’t want it to. 

Nevertheless, he approached closer, paying attention to where the other was staring, and crouched down, “Is it the telescope?”

The cured wolf lifted his head a little higher, and Billions almost leaped with excitement that his brother appeared to acknowledge his question.

Carefully, lovingly, he scooped up the smaller wolf, grip pressing slightly firmer as he felt the shallow breaths coming from their chest, and wobbled up the stairs, keeping balanced. He knelt down in front of the viewing lens of the telescope, adjusting the screws so it would be at eye level with his brother.

“You remember how to do this don’t you?”, Billions made sure that his brother could correctly peer into the lens, “I know it’s been a while for you.”

A hard deliberate thumping wag of the tail seemed to answer his question, and with more rhythmic taps, Billions watched with subdued delight as the other gazed into the telescope.

“You know, Venus is currently at its greatest western elongation. It should be visible right about now.”

The wag of the tail seemed to goad him into continuing, and so he did, “I remember you having some silly illogical superstition that your lyric writing prowess was at its peak when Venus was in the sky. And I still think that is very unfounded because Venus wasn’t even the goddess of poem. That was Calliope. And she was a muse.”

Another wag, and Billions adjusted his glasses, seeing the stars shining through the observation window below the telescope.

“...Wag twice if you can see Venus.”

Two deliberate thumps of the tail, and Billions nearly dropped him out of his lap, managing to collect himself, “...Once if it’s a waning moon.”

The next two wags brought a painful sense of delight to Billions, rubbing by his brother’s ear with his thumb, “You’re right, it’s a waxing moon,” he spoke matter-of-factly.

The old wolf pulled his head back from the telescope, eyes sparkling with stars, as if to invite Billions to look. 

And he did.

“Well if I ever…,” he mused in amazement, “Venus is clearer than ever. I chalk that up to the lack of light pollution. And this being a superior telescope. Remember when we purchased it?”

A soft sigh exited his brother’s nose as he rested fully in his lap.

“We were on top that day. Hubble _wishes_ it was like our lenses. Forget what the Oaks say.”

He continued to adjust the focus on the lenses as he gazed around the depths of space, “Oh and would you look at that, there’s a whole cluster of stars. I haven’t seen the sky this full in a long time,” he smiled, “Even with all the societal progress in our world now, I don’t think it will ever compare to the beauty that is space. Don’t you agree brother?”

No tail wag answered.

“Brother?”

Billions looked from the lens to see his brother limp in his lap, and eyes glazing over, warping the twinkling reflections of the stars. The once shallow ocean waves of breaths had ceased altogether.

Old Dirty Billions had been right. 

It had only been a whisper. 

Billions buried his face into his brother’s fur as he cradled him tightly, only looking up after several painful minutes to stare at the sky, and see the blurry swirled shapes that were once stars and planets.

“I heard you, Brother. I heard you.”


End file.
